Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-05-Speech-4-053"
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"en.20080605.3.4-053"2
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"Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, better regulations, who does not want that? Our Group greatly appreciates the efforts of Commissioner Verheugen to cut down on excessive bureaucracy. Anything that we can do to help small and medium-sized enterprises, we must do. I have set to work on his proposals on food hygiene and I have been making enquiries in the Netherlands. My colleagues have been doing the same in their own countries. How are the bakers, butchers and corner shops doing all over Europe?
We have already heard from Sweden about the problem of pieces of cake being served in the back of the church. Complaints have come from the Netherlands about the rules that theatres and cinemas have to follow. In both of these countries, however, it turned out that the hygiene laws were not the cause of the problem. Other messages have come in too though: from small shops in the United Kingdom which have made great efforts over the last two years to apply the HACCP principles and were proud to have managed it all. Should Parliament now go and say that it is all unnecessary?
That brings us to my next point. In our last term of office, we worked hard on the reform of the general food law. We had to do this because of the shortcomings in food safety and a number of major food scandals. The essence of the general food law is that the responsibility for food safety rests with the producer. The public authorities have a supervisory role. We cut across this division of roles if companies are given exemptions based on a risk analysis, as this would mean that the government was taking the responsibility upon itself again and that would in fact be a step backwards. It is also an unnecessary step, as it has also become clear meanwhile that the implementation is actually going very well in the majority of Member States. The small businesses in the European Member States have already put their houses in order and they are working with practical workable hygiene codes.
There are two things that we should not forget. First, the general food law that we hope to amend today replaced a whole raft of rules. Even in 2004, Parliament, and certainly the PSE Group, made the case for combating excessive bureaucracy. Small companies can already appeal for flexibility under the present rules. A second point is that a reform is already planned for 2009. If there are serious problems, they can be resolved in 2009, i.e. next year. In a word, our Group is not convinced of the need to implement changes in a great hurry now, without a thorough evaluation.
All the same, we do not want to let the small companies down, which is why we have tabled an amendment that entails leaving the decision to the Member States. Should there be urgent problems in one of the Member States, then that state can decide for itself whether to permit exemptions. That is perfectly in accordance with the Regulation, Mr Schnellhardt, and what is more, it is very pragmatic and also very simple. I am therefore asking you to support Amendment 12."@en1
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